In nature, nectar is collected by bees from the flowering plant and brought back to the hive as a liquid and converted into honey. In this process it is stored in cells and covered to preserve it. Honey farmers collect the honey from the hives and extract it as a liquid and store it in 45 gallon barrels that are then for sale on the wholesale market. Naturally over time the liquid honey will begin to crystallize into a solid block. When the honey reaches the processing plants to be repackaged into container for retail sale it is put into giant hot rooms to return the honey back into a liquid so that it can be handled. From there it is heated more and filtered (removing many of the natural properties like pollen, propolus, wax etc.) and then packaged and depending on what type of honey it is going to be it may be super cooled to stimulate recrystallization.
The biggest reason for this type of processing is that the majority of the population does not like the honey that is hard because it is not spreadable or scoopable.
On the other hand there is a percentage of the population that only wants the raw honey because it is natural and unaltered. That market has grown significantly over the last five years. However the honey can be too hard depending on what time of the season the container is poured. Each different floral honey has different taste, texture, color and rate at which it crystallizes and how hard it will become.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,986,855 issued Jan. 22, 1991 by Sterling discloses a method of forming a creamed honey which can be dispensed through a nozzle of a squeeze container by admixing liquid honey with seeding crystals.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,715,747 issued Feb. 10, 1998 by Fedon discloses a method for separating a wax and honey mixture obtained by an uncapping process by feeding the mixture into an Archimedes screw to separate the materials by pressure.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,052,358 issued Aug. 25, 1936 by Lund discloses a method of whipping honey with additional ingredients to form an aerated honey whip.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,328,743 issued May 11, 1982 by Fager discloses a machine for separating honey from honeycomb cappings using two converging conveyor belts so that the honey is squeezed through openings in the belts.